The total death toll from the earthquakes that struck southwest Turkey and northern Syria on Monday has climbed to above 20,000, a tally that is expected to rise as crews comb the rubble of thousands of toppled buildings.
Turkey’s disaster agency raised the country’s confirmed death toll on Thursday night to 17,406, while the number of lives lost in neighbouring Syria stood at 3,317.
Although the chances of finding more people alive faded after the passage of more than 72 hours since the devastating earthquakes, rescue workers in Adana, Turkey pulled out 45-year-old Akgun Eker alive from under the rubble.
Earlier in Turkey, a two-year-old boy was rescued from a collapsed building in Antakya, and an eight-year-old boy was found in Diyarbakir. The two had been trapped for nearly 80 hours under the rubble.
As rescue efforts continued, tens of thousands of survivors were evacuated from the worst-affected Turkish cities. Meanwhile, civilians in Syrian towns helped bury their dead who were killed in the quake.
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